The possibility of a trade war with China, Mexico, and Canada could cause advertisers to slash budgets and rein in spending, analysts and industry executives told Marketing Brew.

Last week, the Trump administration’s 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada briefly went into effect, along with an additional 10% tariff on goods from China. President Donald Trump has also said that details about reciprocal tariffs on other US trading partners will be revealed in early April. While the details around the tariffs have continued to change—the administration deferred some of the tariffs on Mexico and Canada and carved out a one-month exemption for automakers—the implications that they could have on business costs and inflation represent considerable challenges for Madison Avenue.

“The fundamental issue on tariffs is they cause uncertainty,” Martin Sorrell, founder and executive chairman of S4 Capital and founder and former CEO of WPP, told Marketing Brew. In uncertain times, he added, “clients delay decision-making—they either postpone, or they cancel, or they delay.”

Ninety-four percent of US advertisers said they were concerned about the impact of tariffs on ad spend, according to a survey of 100 “advertising decision-makers” by the Interactive Advertising Bureau conducted in February. Of those surveyed, 45% said they planned to reduce overall ad spend.

“Due to the potential impact of the recently imposed tariffs, the 2025 ad market is expected to tighten, adding to overall economic uncertainty,” the industry trade group warned. “This impact will likely be most noticeable mid-year, with the retail, consumer electronics, and media sectors seeing the largest reductions.”

Read more here about the ways in which tariffs could affect the ad business.—RB

Seeing orange? Dreaming of a UConn vs. Purdue or an Iowa vs. South Carolina rematch? You might have a case of “bracketbrain.”

That’s the term ESPN and agency partner Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) came up with for an annual campaign promoting ESPN’s March Madness brackets, called Tournament Challenge. Brackets have long been a mainstay for college basketball fans, and in recent years, ESPN has seen an increase in interest for both the men’s and women’s tournaments, which the company’s marketing team aims to turn into engagement with its other offerings, according to Alex Healy-Lucciola, ESPN’s senior director of brand marketing for fantasy and betting.

“Tournament Challenge is a great way for us to bring people into our ecosystem and start to expose them not only to other fantasy games, but to our other products,” Healy-Lucciola told Marketing Brew. “This is a great opportunity for us to bring a lot more folks into the ESPN digital ecosystem.”

Productivity problems: When ESPN and BSSP started researching for this year’s March Madness campaign, the team came across a commonly reported occurrence: The tournaments lead to a drop in worker productivity.

“Everyone’s glued to the screens,” BSSP ECD Sinan Dagli said. “They’re looking at their brackets…and we started thinking, ‘Maybe we need a name for this phenomenon.’”

Continue reading about the campaign here.—AM

As the demand for branded content in Hollywood continues to grow, United Talent Agency is building out its entertainment marketing division to support it.

UTA’s entertainment marketing division, which opened in 2017, now has more than 80 employees and has made strategic acquisitions, including buying up the marketing consulting firm MediaLink in 2021 and buying the Gen Z marketing outfit JUV Consulting in 2024, the latter of which has been renamed Next Gen and folded into the entertainment marketing division.

As it’s grown, so has its stream of business: The UTA entertainment marketing team has doubled revenue in the last two years, Austin Schumacher, a VP in the division who joined the company in January, said.

Schumacher is one of two recent new hires focused on further bolstering UTA’s entertainment marketing division. Tiffany David, another executive with a history of working in branded entertainment and advertising, also joined the company in January. Schumacher and David joined the company at the start of what is expected to be a busy year, the former told us.

“Brands are continuing to think more and more about how they can broaden their reach through entertainment and tell their story through the lens of culture, whether that’s a content partnership or an experiential activation or a long-term partnership with talent,” Schumacher told Marketing Brew, adding that the team is “anticipating more growth in 2025.”

Read more here about why UTA is expanding now.—JS

Executive moves across the industry.

• American Airlines promoted Caroline Clayton, VP of communications and marketing, to CMO.
• OMD hired two Publicis execs: Starcom’s Kim Einan, who joins as chief strategy officer, and Zenith’s Dan Rolli, who will become chief investment officer. OMD Chief Investment Officer Kelly Metz is departing.
• Disney tapped Andrew Cripps, a former Warner Bros. exec, to head theatrical distribution.
• Carl’s Jr parent company, CKE Restaurants Holdings, recruited Church’s Texas Chicken head Joe Guith as CEO.